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The round-up of September’s dead and their music comes prematurely this month because owing to travel commitments I shall be unable to complete the post in time for first Thursday of the next month. Of course next month’s In Memoriam will include the remainder of September’s musical deaths.

Just as there is an increased interest again in the Four Seasons, due to the release of the The Jersey Boys film, their long-time songwriter and producer Bob Crewe has died. Crew co-wrote classics, as lyricist, such as Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like A Man, Sherry, Rag Doll, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, Let’s Hang On, My Eyes Adored You and Bye, Bye, Baby for the Four Seasons/Frankie Valli, for whom he also wrote songs that became big hits for others, Silence Is Golden (for The Tremeloes) and The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore (Walker Brothers).

Crewe’s first hit record was Silhouettes, recorded in 1957 by both The Rays and then The Diamonds, but a bigger hit later for Herman’s Hermits. The Rays’ b-side was Daddy Cool, a 1977 hit for Darts, also co-written by Crewe. Later he wrote the lyrics to such hits as Music to Watch Girls By (which he originally recorded as The Bob Crewe Generation)andLady Marmalade.

On the same day as Crewe died, we lost another musician featured (briefly) in The Jersey Boys was composer, arranger and musician Johnny Rotella. Like the next artist, he did session work for Steely Dan (on My Old School). Better yet, the multi-talented musician — he played the saxophone, flute, piccolo — played for Frank Zappa and wrote for Frank Sinatra. Early in his career he played with the big bands led by Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Billy Vaughn. He played on the scores for both Godfather films in the 1970s as well as The Wiz. He was a band regular on the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and played on many other television shows, including those hosted by Andy Williams and Sinatra.

In April we lost original Jazz Crusaders trombonist Wayne Henderson; in September the band’s great keyboardist Joe Sample left us. He stayed with The Crusaders until their end, in 1987. He wrote or co-wrote many of their great songs, including the two classics featuring Randy Crawford, Streetlife and One Day I’ll Fly Away. In between he released a few acclaimed solo albums. He also did a lot of session work, much of it on songs heard in the Covered With Soul and Any Major Soul series (Merry Clayton, Maxine Weldon, Marvin Gaye, Minnie Riperton),for jazz giants (Gene Ammon, Quincy Jones) and legends of rock and folk (Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Steely Dan, Tina Turner, for whom he produced her slowed-down version of The Beatles’ Help). Conscious of his mortality, in 2011 Sample put the band together again, with Henderson, saxophonist Wilton Felder and flautist Hubert Laws, but without drummer Stix Hooper, who declined taking part.

Depending on your age, Polly Bergen may not be remembered so much as a singer — despite releasing 11 albums, singing on her 1960s TV show and appearing in Broadway musicals — but as an actress. As a fan of the TV series The Sopranos I feel duty-bound, however, to give her a special mention: in the show she played the former mistress of Tony’s father (the one who also had an affair with JFK). She also had a memorable turn as Lynette Scavo’s mother in Desperate Housewives, before the series became entirely unwatchable.

For some people, the studio in which a song was recorded is as important as the musicians who played on it or the producer who put it together. Such people will be saddened to learn of the death at 82 of Tom Skeeter, co-owner of Sound City Studios. Some stone cold classics came from the LA studio, among them Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush, Elton John’s Caribou, the self-titled albums by Buckingham Nicks and Fleetwood Mac, Dr. John’s Gumbo, War’s Why Can’t We Be Friends?, Foreigner’s Double Vision and later Nirvana’s Nevermind, The Black Crowes’ Amorica, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ One Hot Minute, Weezer’s Pinkerton as well as Rage Against the Machine’s and Blind Melon’s self-titled albums.

You might not know the name David Anderle, and nor did I until after his death at 77 on September 1. Anderle certainly had a hand in creating some great music. He persuaded Verve to sign Frank Zappa, managed Van Dyke Parks and helped the Beach Boys set up their own record label. He worked variously as A&R man or producer for acts such as The Doors, Judy Collins, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, Delaney and Bonnie, Amy Grant, Chris de Burgh and more. And he also supervised the music on movies such as Good Morning Vietnam, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Scrooged.

Any unnatural death is a tragedy, worse when the person is young. Three singers in their 20s died of unnatural causes in September. Two were members of the South Korean pop band Ladies’ Code. They lost their lives in a car accident when a van carrying the group crashed in wet conditions on September 3. Go Eun-bi, 21, died instantly; Kwon Ri-se, 23, died from her injuries on September 7.

And in between those dates, former The X-Factor contestant Simone Battle, 25, died of suicide. She had the dubious benefit of being coached by the deplorable Simon Cowell. She didn’t win the thing, but became a member of G.R.L., touted as a continuation of the Pussycat Dolls, who had an international hit this year with “Ugly Heart”, and backed Pitbull on “Wild Wild Love”.

Just after that, jazz man Gerald Wilson died at very old age of 96. Note the featured tracks: one from 1941, the other from 2011. In a career spanning more than seven decades, Wilson accumulated a prodigious catalogue, and also played with some of the greatest in jazz, people like Jimmy Linceford, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. His bands have included future greats such as Bud Shank, Roy Ayers, Joe Pass and Mel Lewis. He wrote arrangements for artists such as Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Julie London, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington and Nancy Wilson. And funk friends will be interested to know that he was Shuggie Otis’ father-in-law.

In 1978 I made it my business to become a respectable buyer of pop music — at least, to be more respectable than my fellow 12-year-olds. My benchmark in such things was my older brother, who had a broad record collection. He introduced me to things like Jethro Tull’s Aqualung LP (which I’d buy two years later). So in April I bought a bunch of singles: Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”, Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” and, yes, something by Jethro Tull. My brother never indicated whether he was impressed; happily I liked my purchases.

A little later I discovered punk. My best friend at the time and I bought records by the Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, Sham 69, The Damned, Boomtown Rats and, erm, Plastic Bertrand (who, it later turned out was the Milli Vanilli of punk).

I was aware of disco, of course, and bought the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, though I didn’t play it much. I liked Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven” though.

But the records I’m most proud of are the singles I bought in January 1978, just weeks after I had still bought a single by Harpo: The Runaways’ “School Days”, Tom Robinson’s “2-4-6-8 Motorway” and Blondie’s “X-Offender”. All are still favourites, though the Blondie track featured here is the single I bought on a trip to Amsterdam.

Which brings me to the illustrations for these posts: of the records I actually owned, I include the cover of the format in which I bought them — single or LP. In the case of the Blondie record, I naturally use the Dutch cover.

And of this lot, I had all the records except those of John Paul Young (who would lend his name to two popes later that year), El Pasador, Brian & Michael, Marshall Hain and Exile — those I include because they recreate the smells and sounds of my 1978.

TV themes: the great ones are over all too soon. So here’s a mix of full versions of 23 well-known TV themes, stretching from the 1970s to the present —extended versions of many TV themes which I posted exactly a year ago.

It seems that whereas in the past themes used to be written specifically for a show, modern series adopt songs previously released by often obscure artists. Which is great news for the artists, especially commercially. Examples of TV shows whose themes were derived by that method include The Wire (first recorded by Gravelly-Voiced Grinch whose name rhymes with Wom Taite in 1978), The Sopranos (by an English band in 1997),Mad Men (2006), True Blood (2005), Suits (2010) and Shameless (US version, 2005), as well as, I think, that of the great Justified.

This used to be much rarer in the past. One example of a song that was repurposed as a TV theme was Andrew Gold’s 1978 song “Thank You For Being A Friend”, which was re-recorded by Cynthia Fee to score the title credits for The Golden Girls. For more on that, and how Gold’s became to be the first voice to be broadcast on Mars, go to my post on The Golden Girls.

Another song that existed before the series it scores is that of How I Met Your Mother, an initially very funny show which outlived its welcome by about four years. Its theme is very brief. It is, in fact, a 11-second snatch from a song by a garage band called The Solids called “Hey, Beautiful”, written by band members Carter Bays and Craig Thomas — who are also the originators of the show which, what’s more, was based on them and their friends. I’ve written about How I Met Your MotherHERE.

Another show I’ve written about is Welcome Back, Kotter. Its theme is a 1970s archetype, in a way that’s better than it sounds. It was written and performed by John Sebastian, formerly of The Loving Spoonful and an alumnus of the crowd which The Mamas and the Papas sang about in “Creeque Alley”.

I also like the theme of WKRP In Cincinnati, much more than the show itself. The theme doesn’t really reveal the excellent musicianship of the track, so hearing Steve Carlisle’s full version, with its jazzy instrumental break is quite surprising.

I think I have enough good stuff for another two mixes, so there’s the answer to the question: “And where, may I ask, is the best-theme-ever, Dragnet/Hawaii-Five-O/Magnum P.I./Barney Miller/Twin Peaks?”

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-tuned covers. PW in comments.

Last week I switched on our local talk radio station, one that never plays music during weekdays. And there it was, playing George Michael’s “Kissing A Fool”. My first thought was: “Shit, did George Michael die?”, which would explain the music.

My second, rather cynical, thought was: “Oh well, that means we’ll have a headline death for In Memoriam”. When “Kissing A Fool” was over, a Billy Joel song came on, alerting me to the fact that George Michael was still happily alive. It seems the radio station merely had transmitter problems and was filling, ahem, dead air. All this is to say that this month, the Reaper was easy on the superstars and legends of music, presumably having had his fill in the world of cinema. But two August music-related deaths merit particular mention.

The producer and record company co-owner Henry Stone helped start the careers of Ray Charles in 1952, James Brown a few years later, Betty Wright in the ’60s, and a host of disco artists, such as George McCrae, Gwen McCrae and KC and the Sunshine Band ion the TK label, which he co-owned. As a distributor in the 1960s he helped bring the records from labels such as Atlantic, Stax and Motown to the public.

For people living in Britain in the 1980s, Mike Smith was a household name, as a DJ on BBC’s Radio 1 and as a presenter on Top of the Pops. He was largely inoffensive, even vaguely likeable. But in 1986 our lad fancied himself a bit of a censor. Two years earlier Radio 1’ priggish DJ Mike Read decided to be a guardian of public morality when he abruptly stopped playing Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” and banned it from his show. It’s the only significant thing anyone will ever remember of Mike Read.

So in the summer of 1986, Mike Smith decided to follow his namesake’s example by banning the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Some Candy Talking”. The BBC, perhaps burnt by their experience of helping to turn a minor hit into a mega-seller, declined to follow Smith’s moralising lead. The song peaked at number 13 on the UK charts. Say what you like, but Mike Smith was a bitter foe of tooth decay.